TWO MOVIES
ONE LOW PRICE
General Admission: $11.00
Children 4 to 12: $7.00
Children 3 & Under are free
Thursday Night is Family Night:
Regular admissions apply to a maximum of $28.00 per car.(Thursday's only)

75 Minutes from Kamloops.
55 Minutes from Kelowna.
30 Minutes from Sicamous.
22 Minutes from Vernon.
20 Minutes from Salmon Arm.
We are located at:
5341 Highway 97A, Just South of Enderby.

DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

With the night’s opening fast approaching, Lindquist is on a
last-minute handyman run, adjusting lights and dealing with the damage
from a storm that ripped through the area the night before.

“Just absolutely crazy weather,” he recalls with a laugh. “We had a
lineup down the driveway and all of a sudden there was this black
cloud.”

Rain came down fast and furious, briefly turning the theatre’s
driveway into a rushing river. Hail pinged off car tops. The customers waited it out.

“We had a couple hundred people out here,” Lindquist says. “It shows
you the resilience of our clientele, and the durability of this little
labour of love. Because that’s what it is. It’s three guys doing
something we really like to do.”

LABOUR OF LOVE

Though it was built in 1996, the Starlight looked like it had been
abandoned for a couple of decades when Lindquist first drove past it in
2002.

Lindquist had been all over B.C.’s Interior that year, touring
theatres in Castlegar, Trail and Creston as he looked for a small
operation to take over.

A former projectionist at the Duncan drive-in during the late 70s,
he’d worked in theatres on and off ever since and was itching to get
back to the screens.

“I’d had enough of the rat race,” he says.

“I just wanted to have a little theatre in the middle of nowhere and play my shows.”

But despite his beginnings in the industry, running a drive-in had
never entered the picture, until his friend and eventual business
partner Randy Noonan suggested he investigate the Starlight.

Soon, he’d packed up his Lower Mainland life, and was in Enderby for good.

With the help of friends and family he, Noonan and a third owner,
Brian Smith, set to work fixing the grounds, whipping the 1960s-era
equipment into shape and transforming the site into a working theatre.

Twelve days later, the Starlight opened for its first official season.

“It was unreal,” Lindquist remembers. “We had no picture the night
before. We got our picture working at 11 p.m. on the Thursday night
before we opened Friday.”

In the 11 seasons that have followed, the trio have built a loyal following.

Some come once a summer, making special trips from Kelowna and
Kamloops. Others are here nearly once a week, driving back whenever a
new double feature goes up.

“It isn’t my drive-in theatre and it isn’t Randy’s and it isn’t Brian’s.

“If you come here to see a show it’s your drive-in.”

ATMOSPHERE

Once the cars start rolling in, the atmosphere at the Starlight is
like a family camp-out. Just under the screen a group of people set up sleeping bags, lawn chairs and blankets. Others start a
pre-show game of frisbee. Two teenagers on a date crawl into a sleeping
bag in the back of a pickup truck, and use the pre-show wait to check
their phones.

Atop another truck, Emliee Tambellini is camped out in a nest of blankets, munching popcorn as she waits for dusk.

Her mother, Angelina Tambellini says it’s her daughter’s first
drive-in experience, and the size of the screen, at 6,000 square feet,
it’s a third bigger than what’s found in an IMAX theatre, has already
wowed her.

Tambellini says she remembers going to the Nelson drive-in when she was a child growing up in the Kootenays.

“I’ve always liked the drive-ins like this,” she says. “I always thought they were cool. It was a good kid experience.”

The nostaligia factor is pretty common here, Lindquist says, and hard to escape given the Starlight’s 1960s decor, which extends all the way
to a concession advertisement featuring dancing candy bars and hotdogs that runs just before showtime.

“One of the most amazing things to happen out here is when you can
hear the kids laugh,” says Smith, between taking admissions at the front
gate. “The kids will sit outside and watch the movie. And it just warms
your heart, because there are none of these left and you’ve got a whole
generation of 30, 40-somethings that want to bring their kids here.”

Near the back of the lot, Alexis Semeniuk has taken her camper on a
detour from Paul Lake to give her kids a taste of her own childhood.

“It’s exciting,” says the Kelowna resident. “It’s fun to show my kids
the experiences we used to have growing up. It’s a fun little walk down
memory lane.”

THE FUTURE

It’s been 10-and-a-half seasons now since Lindquist, Noonan and Smith
threw their first movie up on the screen and opened the gates to the
first cars of movie-goers.

But when the trio of friends (who live in different cities in the
off-season) reconvened a few months before this year’s opening, it was
with the thought that season 11 would be their last.

Not for lack of cars, customers or personal interest.

“I want to do this until I’m 80,” Lindquist, 55, proclaims. But, as
indoor theatres made the final push from film to digital projection, the
1960s technology that had steered the Starlight through the last decade
had finally become obsolete.

Conventional digital projectors wouldn’t be able to project a big
enough, clear enough picture for the Starlight’s screen. To get the same
picture quality, they would have needed two running simultaneously, and
even then digital projectors weren’t capable of throwing a picture all
the way across the theatre’s parking and seating area.

“So 40 days before we opened we had a little meeting and said, ‘should we give it a shot?’” says Lindquist.

Another round of research followed, and this time good news came with
it. A new IMAX-style projector that would meet their needs was now
available.

The ’60s-style drive-in was getting a digital heart transplant.

“It’s wasn’t a financial decision. That was an emotional decision,”
Lindquist says. “We didn’t want this place to go away. It was a huge
investment, it’s crazy. You don’t even want to know. It’s insane.”

Once it starts, the picture quality is stunning. Crisp and clear,
colours pop off the screen. Beyond that, there’s the silhouette of the
mountains, the occasional flash of headlights as a stray car passes on
the 97. With the car windows rolled down, stray laughter and
conversation float in from around the lot, as moviegoers tuck under
their blankets, pick up the popcorn and settle in.

“When the field is full and people are having a good time, that’s why
you do it. That’s why you suffer through the rainy, cold, wet nights,”
Smith says.